Mr. Chairman, today, for only the third time in our nation's
history, this committee meets to consider articles of impeachment
against the president of the United States. This is a momentous
occasion, and I would hope that despite the sharp partisan tone which
has marked this debate, we can approach it with a sober sense of the
historic importance of this matter.

I believe we need to get back to basics -- the Constitution --
and what the impeachment power conferred on the Congress requires of
us. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution says that a president
"Shall be removed from office on impeachment for and conviction of
treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." End quote.

We have received testimony from some of the nation's leading
scholars and historians who agree that impeachable offenses are those
which are abuses of presidential power, that undermine the structure
or functioning of government or constitutional liberty. Benjamin
Franklin called impeachment "a substitute for assassination." It is
in fact a peaceful procedure for protecting the nation from despots by
providing a constitutional means for removing a president who would
misuse his presidential power to make himself a tyrant or otherwise to
undermine our constitutional form of government. To impeach a
president, it must be that serious.

The history of the language is also clear. At the Constitutional
Convention, the Committee on Style, which was not authorized to make
any substantive changes, dropped the words "against the United States"
after the words "high crimes and misdemeanors" because it was
understood that only high crimes and misdemeanors against the system
of government would be impeachable, that the words "against the United
States" were redundant and unnecessary.

History and the precedents alike show that impeachment is not a
punishment for crimes, but a means to protect our constitutional
system, and was certainly not meant to be a means to punish a
president for personal wrongdoing not related to his office.

Some of our Republican colleagues have made much of the fact that
some of the Democrats on this committee in 1974 voted in favor of an
article of impeachment relating to President Nixon's alleged perjury
on his tax returns. But the plain fact is that a bipartisan vote of
that committee -- something we have not yet had in this process on any
substantive question -- rejected that article. That's the historical
record. And it was rejected largely based on the belief that an
impeachable offense must be an abuse of presidential power, a great
and serious offense against the nation, not perjury on a private
matter.

I have heard it said tonight that perjury is as serious an
offense as bribery, that it is equivalent to bribery, a per se
impeachable offense.

But bribery goes to the heart of the president's conduct of his
constitutional duties. It converts his loyalties and efforts from
promoting the welfare of the republic to promoting some other
interest.

Perjury is a serious crime and if proven should be prosecuted in
a court of law. But it may or may not implicate the president's
duties and performance in office. Perjury on a private matter,
perjury regarding sex, is not a great and serious offense against the
nation. It is not an abuse of uniquely presidential power. It does
not threaten our form of government.

The effect of impeachment is to overturn the popular will of the
voters as expressed in a national election. We must not overturn an
election and remove a president from office except to defend our very
system of government or our constitutional liberties against a dire
threat. And we must not do so without an overwhelming consensus of
the American people and of their representatives in Congress of the
absolute necessity.

There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment or an
impeachment substantially supported by one of our major political
parties and largely opposed by the other. Such an impeachment would
lack legitimacy, would produce divisiveness and bitterness in our
politics for years to come, and will call into question the very
legitimacy of our political institutions.

The American people have heard all the allegations against the
president, and they overwhelmingly oppose impeaching him. The people
elected the president. They still support him. We have no right to
overturn the considered judgment of the American people.

There are clearly some members of the Republican majority who
have never accepted the results of the 1992 or 1996 elections and who
apparently have chosen to ignore the message of last month's election.
But in a democracy, it is the people who rule, not political elites,
and certainly not those members of political elites who will not be
here in the next election, in the next Congress, having been
repudiated at the polls. Some members of this committee may think the
people have chosen badly, but it is the people's choice, and we must
respect it absent a fundamental threat to our democratic form of
government that would justify overturning the repeated expressions of
the people's will at the ballot box. Members of Congress have no
power -- indeed, they have no right -- to arrogate to themselves the
power to nullify an election absent such a compelling threat.

We have also received testimony from some outstanding former
prosecutors, including the former Republican Governor of
Massachusetts, Bill Weld, who headed up the Criminal Division of
Ronald Reagan's Justice Department, who compellingly explained why all
the loose talk about perjury and obstruction of justice would not hold
up in a real prosecutor's office, that the evidence we have been given
would never support a criminal prosecution in a real court of law.

For those who demand that the president prove his innocence, rather
than his accusers having to prove his guilt or even to state clearly
the specific charges, we received answers from Mr. Ruff yesterday and
from Mr. Lowell this morning in which they meticulously pointed out,
using Mr. Starr's own work, how the charges were not supported and
were indeed contradicted by the evidence that Mr. Starr's own office
had assembled. In fact, Mr. Starr has stated in his referral to
Congress that his own star witness is not credible, except when her
uncorroborated testimony conflicts with the president's, and then it
proves his perjury.

We have received sanctimonious lectures from the other side of
the aisle about the rule of law, but the law does not permit perjury
to be proved by the uncorroborated testimony of one witness, nor does
the law recognize as corroboration the fact that the witness made the
same statement to several different people. You may choose to believe
that the president was disingenuous, that he was not particularly
helpful to Paula Jones's lawyers when they asked him intentionally
vague questions, or that he is a bum. But that does not make him
guilty of perjury.

This committee, this House, is not a grand jury. To impeach the
president would subject the country to the trauma of a trial in the
Senate. It would paralyze the government for many months while the
problems of Social Security, Medicare, a deteriorating world economy,
and all our foreign concerns festered without proper attention. We
cannot simply punt our duty to judge the facts to the Senate if we
find mere probable cause that an impeachable offense may have been
committed. To do so would be a derogation of our constitutional duty.

The proponents of impeachment have provided no direct evidence of
impeachable offenses. They rely solely on the findings of a so-called
independent counsel who has repeatedly mischaracterized evidence,
failed to include in his report exculpatory evidence, and consistently
misstated the law. We must not be a rubber stamp for Kenneth Starr.
We have been entrusted with a grave and awesome duty by the American
people, by the Constitution and by history. We must exercise that
duty responsibly. At a bare minimum, that means the president's
accusers must go beyond hearsay and innuendo and beyond demands that
the president prove his innocence of vague and changing charges. The
must provide clear and convincing evidence of specific impeachable
conduct. This they have failed to do.

If you believe the president's admission to the grand jury and to
the nation of an inappropriate sexual relationship with Ms. Lewinsky
and his apologies to the nation were not abject enough, that is not a
reason for impeachment.

Contrition is a remedy for sin and is certainly appropriate here. But
while insufficiency of contrition may leave the soul still scarred,
unexpiated sin proves no crimes and justifies no impeachments.

Some say that if we do not impeach the president, we treat him as
if he is above the law. Is the president above the law? Certainly
not. He is subject to the criminal law, to indictment and prosection
when he leaves office like any other citizen, whether or not he is
impeached.

REP. SENSENBRENNER: (Gavel.) The gentleman's time has expired.

REP. NADLER: May I ask one additional minute?

REP. SENSENBRENNER: Without objection.

REP. NADLER: Thank you. And if the Republican leadership allows
a vote, he would likely by the third president in U.S. history and the
first since 1848 to be censured by the Congress. But impeachment is
intended as a remedy to protect the nation, not as a punishment for an
errant president.

The case is not there. The proof has not been put forward. The
conduct alleged, even if proven, does not rise to the level of an
impeachable offense. We should not dignify these articles of
impeachment by sending them to the full House. To do so would be an
affront to the Constitution and would consign this committee to the
condemnation of history for generations to come.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. SENSENBRENNER: The gentleman's time is expired. The
gentleman from Florida, Mr. Canady.